Author Page for SEK

SEK vs. ENT

SEK needed to go to an ENT because his right ear is on the fritz. So he went to VERY YOUNG ENT’s office in Prairieville, Louisiana, which may or may not have any bearing on what follows.

VERY YOUNG ENT: (looking at — but not reading — SEK’s medical file) This is a really thick file you have here.

SEK: I do what I can.

VERY YOUNG ENT: (putting down file) So what seems to the be the problem, man?

SEK: My right ear is on strike.

VERY YOUNG ENT: (puts otoscope in SEK’s ear) Whoa, dude, how do you hear anything out of this?

SEK: I don’t at the moment.

VERY YOUNG ENT: I mean, what about ever?

SEK: What about ever what?

VERY YOUNG ENT: What about how do you ever hear anything out of it? It’s like your ear canal is upside down, man.

SEK: It’s not ideal.

VERY YOUNG ENT: And what’s up with your eardrum?

SEK: (looking longingly as his unread medical history) There’s a —

VERY YOUNG ENT: Giant hole in it, man. How’d that happen? I mean —

SEK: Tubes. Many sets of —

VERY YOUNG ENT: You don’t need to tell me. That’s giant — like, giant. How are we even having this conversation?

SEK: (resisting to the urge to say, “What conversation?”) With effort.

VERY YOUNG ENT: No doubt, man, no doubt. So it’s not infected, it’s just —

SEK: Weird?

VERY YOUNG ENT: Very weird. Let me look something up. (leaves)

And that’s where SEK’s story ends, at least for the moment, because SEK is still in the room where the VERY YOUNG ENT left him. After about 30 minutes SEK got so bored sitting in the room that he took out his laptop and wrote this.

SEK isn’t sure whether the VERY YOUNG ENT is coming back, or even if the VERY YOUNG ENT’s offices are even open anymore.

The rest of the story is available at Facebook because sorry, that’s just where people “live-blog” stuff now.

And the Oscar went to…

I awake to find that many people are complaining that the unconventional Boyhood — which I loved — lost to another “system” film, Birdman, which I also loved.

But in all seriouness — what the fuck?

A darkly comic film by a Mexican director who elevated what in lesser hands would’ve been pure gimmick into art is just typical Hollywood system fare?

Even though Boyhood should have won based on its extreme audaciousness, in any other year, every who’s complaining this morning would have been overjoyed to see Birdman rewarded for its merely mundane audaciousness.

I love to complain as much as the next guy, but no one was robbed this year — at least not in the “Best Picture” category.

The 10 worst “Best Picture” Oscar winners are…

…and the envelope says!

“There are no homosexuals doin’ homosexual things in my junk pile”

This report on conditions on the ground in Alabama now that gay marriage is legal is not to be missed.

In which SEK is, for once, rendered speechless

SEK was — as you well know — once a respected academic who hobnobbed with the people at the very top of his discipline. So he is accustomed to meeting people whose work he has invested days and months of his life into. But none of them were on the television and apparently that makes a big difference, as SEK learned at the Dallas Comic Con this weekend.

SEK was wandering around in a futile attempt to keep up with one of the Con’s organizers, Devin Pike, when he “accidentally” ended up in the “backstage” area where the talent hangs out when they’re not signing or taking photographs. And before you ask — if you give SEK media credentials he will “accidentally” end up a lot of places he’s probably not supposed to be. That is the nature of SEK and even if he didn’t do it deliberately the universe would oblige. Or possibly insist. 

So SEK was “backstage” and he walks smack into the preternaturally charming John Barrowman. 

What happens when you walk up to a frat bro and say, “Don’t be racist”?

If you’re me and they’re like they are, they’d probably yell “KIKE!” and run away.

File under: Some days I really don’t miss teaching.

“The first out gay in space is way bigger than hate chicken”

Just great — thanks to what is possibly the greatest pull-quote ever, I’m now required to love 2/5 of ‘N Sync:

In the “Keep it 100″ portion of the show, in which panelists are asked uncomfortable questions and urged to be completely honest, Wilmore asked certified Russian cosmonaut Lance Bass the following question:

“You have an offer to do a corporate event, and if you do, they’ll pay your way into space — but the sponsor’s Chik-fil-A. They’re not trying to get rid of you, by the way, they just want you to have an awesome gay space adventure. Do you do it?”

“I’m about to be a 100 right now,” Bass replied. “Yes, I’d do it, because the first out gay in space is way bigger than hate chicken.”

About that new Harper Lee novel…

…it’s important to remember something about statements like this one reprinted in the BBC:

“I hadn’t realised it [the original book] had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it,” Lee continued. “After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication.”

Namely, that they were in all likelihood written by her “dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter,” who has been writing such statements on Lee’s behalf — if not with her knowledge — since at least 2012.

In an interview with NPR last year the author of The Mockingbird Next Door, Marja Mills, noted that the blind and deaf Lee — who recently suffered a stroke — often signs any document put in front of her by Carter.

I know everyone is very excited to read this sequel/prequel of To Kill a Mockingbird, but I have a feeling that something very sad precipitated this novel’s publication, and that it involves taking advantage of an elderly woman.

In which SEK seems to be trying to get arrested

SEK is on his way from Baton Rouge to Houston. Outside of Scott, Louisiana he witnesses a bus try to switch lanes, clipping the car in front of him and sending it spinning into the median, where it finally comes to a halt on an incline, almost sideways.

The bus just keeps on going.

SEK pulls over, exits his vehicle, and walks back toward the car and peers into the car. SIDEWAYS GUY is slumped over unconscious on his deployed airbag. Then –